World's oldest woman celebrates 117th birthday in style

Emma Morano, humanity's last known survivor of the 19th century, turned 117 yesterday, got dressed up and asked "does my hair look all right?" before having her photograph taken.

The oldest known person alive can hardly see, is very hard of hearing, has been largely bed-bound for the last year and has not left her small second-storey apartment, in Verbania on the shores of Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, for over two decades.

But those who know her best says she remains alert, has a good sense of humour and continues to enjoy a reasonable quality of life.

"What impresses me the most is her memory, she does not forget a thing," one of her caregivers, Colombian nurse Yamile Vergara, told AFP.

Ms Morano beside a photograph of her younger self. (AAP) ()

Her doctor Carlo Bava told AFP she was very aware of all the fuss being made about her reaching the latest milestone in a remarkable life that began on November 29, 1899.

"She is very lucid, very present," Dr Bava said.

"She was very happy and honoured to get a telegram of congratulations this morning from President (Sergio) Mattarella.

"There was a television crew there and she got flowers. She had dressed up and she was very proud. She posed for a photographer and even asked if her hair looked good.

"So I think you can say she is on good form."

Ms Morano has reached a ripe old age despite an extraordinarily tough life, even by the standards of many of her contemporaries, and following a diet that flouts almost every piece of established medical wisdom.

"I eat two eggs a day, and that's it. And cookies," she told AFP in an interview last month.

Ms Morano lives on a diet of two eggs a day, and cookies. (AAP) ()

She has long eschewed vegetables and her consumption of fruit is limited to the occasional handful of grapes or snacks of apple puree.

Her prodigious egg habit started when she was diagnosed with anaemia at 20 and a doctor told her to start eating two raw and one cooked every day, a habit she maintained until her appetite began to ebb slightly around the age of 110.

When she still had teeth, she was also fond of chomping chicken and lean raw steak.

Along with her fondness for pure protein, she has always had a sweet tooth meaning visitors were usually advised to come bearing gifts of Colomba, a cake rich in egg and butter that Italians associate with Easter, or Pannetone and Pandoro, traditional Christmas treats of a similar ilk.

But she wasn't planning to enjoy any of the birthday cakes she received this year.

"The last time I ate a little, but then I did not feel good," she confided to AFP last month.

Dr Bava suspects Ms Morano has thrived despite her unusual diet, not because of it.

"I think her secret is genetic. All of her family lived a very long time," the doctor said.

"The diet she has had would have destroyed the liver of most people. But with Emma, I think she could even eaten pebbles and she would still have lived a very long time.

"What might be more important is that she has always had a very strong character. It has always been her who decides what she does or doesn't do."

Ms Vergara thinks a sunny disposition is the key.

"I make her laugh and she makes me laugh," the caregiver said in a telephone interview.

"That is her therapy. Laughter is the best medicine. She is a comic, she has a real sense of humour. If I call her 'my little baby' she will reply 'What do you mean, I'm as old as Methuselah!'"

Ms Morano herself has attributed her longevity to having the courage to take the life-changing decision of leaving a violent husband in 1938, shortly after the death in infancy of their son, her only child.

It was always an unhappy marriage. Years before, her true love had gone off to fight in World War I and did not come back.

Leaving a husband was no easy thing to do in the Church-dominated Italy of the 1930s and Ms Morano worked in a factory producing jute sacks to support herself.

"Back then, the workers in those factories were constantly breathing in dust and yet her lungs are fine - that's genetics," Dr Bava said.